National Differences in Non-financial Disclosure: A Cross-Country Analysis

This chapter analyzes national differences among “non-financial disclosure” reports in a cross-country comparison after the introduction of Directive 2014/95/EU. The aim of the analysis is to understand what the main differences are and on what they depend. The analysis focuses on the main definitions of “large organization” and of “public interest,” on the company scope and on the report framework and features, i.e., the information that the report must necessarily contain and how it should be presented. The methodology adopted involves the analysis of the document “Member State Implementation of Directive 2014/95/EU,” published by the CSR Europe and GRI in 2017 and a literature review of the period 2018–2020 analyzing the actual application of the Directive in the national context and/or making comparisons between different European nations. This study is relevant as it highlights the importance of knowing CSR activities especially for large or listed companies, but it underlines some critical issues, including the inability to create a correlation between the non-financial information communicated and its impact, risks, and plans.